D. J. Taylor
My series of annual puffs for succeeding volumes of Pierre Coustillas, Paul F. Matheisen and Arthur C. Young's magisterial edition of The Collected Letters of George Gissing ends with the appearance of the ninth and final volume (University of Ohio Press, £75). Covering the years 1902- 3, and containing some wretched letters from Gissing's last illness — he died of emphysema at 46 — this brings Professor Coustillas's decades of endeavour to a tri- umphant conclusion. All that remains is for the doyen of Gissing studies to complete a biography that was first advertised in the publishers' catalogues as long ago as 1981.
Elsewhere, I was struck by the end-of- tether quality of Anthony Powell's Journals 1990-1992 (Heinemann, £12.99) — the decorousness of previous volumes all gone as, harried by age and medical horrors, Powell stops bothering about what future readers may think of his opinions. Late- period diaries usually diminish reputations rather than enhance them, but I came away thinking Powell's status as the greatest liv- ing English novelist even more secure. Amongst a clutch of highly uninteresting novels, Shadows of Empire (Sinclair Steven- son, £16.99) confirmed Allan Massie as one of the few modern writers with any sense of historical perspective. Needless to say, boring old right-wing farts like Massie never get anywhere near the Booker Prize these days, even when they write about so fashionable a topic as our post-imperial decline.
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